'—And partly because it gives a fair example of the manner in which Mr. Tudor endeavours to be droll even in the midst of his most tender passages.
'Leonora was at this time seated—'
'Oh, skip the extract,' said Charley; 'I suppose there are three or four pages of it?'
'It goes down to where Leonora says that his fate and her own are in his hands.'
'Yes, about three columns,' said Charley; 'that's an easy way of making an article—eh, Harry?'
'Aliter non fit, amice, liber,' said the classical Norman.
'Well, skip the extract, grandmamma.'
'Now, did anyone ever before read such a mixture of the bombastic and the burlesque? We are called upon to cry over every joke, and, for the life of us, we cannot hold our sides when the catastrophes occur. It is a salad in which the pungency of the vinegar has been wholly subdued by the oil, and the fatness of the oil destroyed by the tartness of the vinegar.'
'His old simile,' said Charley; 'he was always talking about literary salads.'
'The gentleman, of course, gives way at the last minute,' continued Mrs. Woodward. 'The scene in which he sits with the unopened letter lying on his table before him has some merit; but this probably arises from the fact that the letter is dumb, and the gentleman equally so.'